You always remember your first.

For Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus, his first time partaking in a party leadership debate was filled with serious discussions, hobbies and some local name drops.

Angus, along with fellow New Democratic Party (NDP) Leadership hopefuls Guy Caron, Niki Ashton and Peter Julian took their political game to Ottawa Sunday night in both English and French as all have hopes of replacing Tom Mulcair in the fall.

It also brought forth some comparisons to the Conservative party’s leadership race, as 14 hopefuls there look to replace former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Angus admits there was a little more time needed to prepare.

“You don’t know what’s coming at you,” he said, “I did have to do a lot of preparation on a whole series of issues, particularly because it was a bilingual debate.”

The NDP debate centred around how the party can come back after being relegated to third party status in the 2015 federal election.

Angus says he is calling on the party to work together on key issues, something not seen in the Conservative Leadership race.

“There’s a lot of in-fighting (in the Conservative race), there’s a lot of hot-button, very divisive policies,” he said. “(The NDP needs) to come together as a party and say ‘We are on the same page on key issues like jobs, like making sure that people got a better deal if they’re being squeezed with more and more short-term contract work.'”

“We’re dealing with the environment, we’re dealing with First Nation issues, we’re dealing with veterans issues so I want us to come out of this leadership race together and stronger.”

Angus wasn’t shy about his Northern Ontario roots either. He even gave a few shout outs to local singer Celeste Levis and “Kim the Bartender at Nikki’s,” who the local MP says gave him a lecture on what went wrong in the last election.

“I tell those stories because that’s where I come from,” he said, “The people in my region that I know, and the people that I talk to…that’s what gives me my base for my politics so it was good to be able to tell those stories.”

The question of debate formats came to the surface after Conservative leadership candidate Kevin O’Leary pulled out of a debate in Edmonton in February.

O’Leary publicly stated he didn’t like the format of having 14 people on stage talking the same issues without a back-and-forth. His opposition suggests it had more to do with it being a bilingual debate.

For Angus, he didn’t know what to expect but admits the debate was fun.

“I think they mixed it up, I think it gave us a chance to debate in French and English on issues of substance and then there was some fun questions,” he said, “Overall, I think it was a really positive debate and I think everybody really handled themselves very, very well. I was pretty honoured, actually, to be on the same stage with my colleagues.”

He’ll have the honour of doing it again when candidates get together for a debate in Montreal on March 26, one dedicated to youth issues.

Afterwards, Sudbury will be the backdrop for another debate on May 28th.

The NDP choose their new leader in October.

Filed under: charlie-angus, Local News, ndp-leadership